ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Animal Networks. Zoos in the Peripheries 1

Session Submission Type: Organized Session

English Abstract

In recent years, the history of zoological gardens has seen a marked rise in scholarly interest, attracting historians of science, urban historians, historians of colonialism and researchers of human-animal relations. Yet the lion’s share of these contributions has focused on Western institutions, primarily zoos in Europe and North America. This symposium seeks to decenter zoo history by turning our focus toward institutions beyond the traditional canon. We aim to explore how zoos and animal collections in regions such as Eastern Europe, Africa, Australia, and Asia operated as part of a broader (though patchy and often transient) global network. We use the term “zoo” broadly here, to include studies of animal parks, private estates, princely menageries, and other institutions that held and displayed “exotic” animals. Our working hypothesis is that peripheral zoos not only competed in emulating well-established institutions, but also learned from one another, sharing practices and ideas through publications, correspondence, visits, and personal networks. The presentations show how historical actors copied, adapted and improved on specific practices of procuring specimens and animal keeping, how animals moved through these networks, what was considered innovative and whose knowledge was taken for granted. This symposium, consisting of three sessions, explores how zoos adapted, modified, or improved on established practices.

Sub Unit

• Organized Session

Chair

• Marianna Szczygielska, Max Planck institute for the History of Science

Individual Presentations

• Ignavus in Circulation: Sloth-Keeping, Colonial Misinterpretation, and the Erasure of Indigenous Knowledge in Early Modern Zoology - Jenny Merker, University of Jena

• Jussieu’s Problem: Elephant Agency, Logistics, and the Embodied Colonial Archive - Jed Chew, University of Chicago

• Captive Subjects: Barrackpore Menagerie, British India, and the Global Animal Trade - Alexander Clayton, University of Vermont

• Innovative periphery? Ram Brahma Sanyal and the Calcutta Zoo - Oliver Hochadel, IMF-CSIC, Barcelona

Session Organizer

• Oliver Hochadel, IMF-CSIC, Barcelona